Roads from Rome | Page 2

of the fields to the bustle of the town streets and the
formal observances of his father's house. Seeking a quiet interlude, he
turned northward and climbed the hill which rose high above the
tumultuous Adige. The shadows of the September afternoon had begun
to lengthen when he reached the top and threw himself upon the ground
near a green ash tree.
The bodily exercise had at least done him this service, that the formless
misery of the past weeks, the monstrous, wordless sense of desolation,
now resolved itself into a grief for which inner words, however
comfortless, sprang into being. Below him Verona, proud sentinel
between the North and Rome, offered herself to the embrace of the wild,
tawny river, as if seeking to retard its ominous journey from Rhaetia's
barbarous mountains to Italy's sea by Venice. Far to the northeast
ghostly Alpine peaks awaited their coronal of sunset rose. Southward

stretched the plain of Lombardy. Within easy reach of his eye
shimmered the lagoon that lay about Mantua. The hour veiled hills and
plain in a luminous blue from which the sun's radiance was excluded.
Through the thick leaves of the ash tree soughed the evening wind,
giving a voice to the dying day. In its moan Catullus seemed to find his
own words: "He is dead, he is dead." His brother was dead. This fact
became at last clear in his consciousness and he began to take it up and
handle it.
The news had come two weeks ago, just as he was on the point of
flying from Rome and the autumn fevers to the gaieties of Naples and
Baiae. That was an easy escape for a youth whose only taskmasters
were the Muses and who worked or played at the behest of his own
mood. But his brother, Valerius, had obeyed the will of Rome, serving
her, according to her need, at all seasons and in all places. Stationed
this year in Asia Minor he had fallen a victim to one of the disastrous
eastern fevers. And now Troy held his ashes, and never again would he
offer thanks to Jupiter Capitolinus for a safe return to Rome.
As soon as the letter from Valerius's comrade reached him, Catullus
had started for Verona. For nearly ten years he had spoken of himself
as living in Rome, his house and his work, his friendships and his love
knitting him closely, he had supposed, into the city's life. But in this
naked moment she had shown him her alien and indifferent face and he
knew that he must go home or die. It was not until he saw his father's
stricken eyes that he realised that, for once, impulse had led him into
the path of filial duty. In the days that followed, however, except by
mere presence, neither mourner could help the other. His father's inner
life had always been inaccessible to Catullus and now in a common
need it seemed more than ever impossible to penetrate beyond the
outposts of his noble stoicism. With Catullus, on the other hand, a
moved or troubled mind could usually find an outlet in swift, hot words,
and, in the unnatural restraint put upon him by his father's
speechlessness, his despair, like a splinter of steel, had only encysted
itself more deeply. To-day he welcomed the relief of being articulate.
The tie between his brother and himself was formed on the day of his

own birth, when the two year old Valerius--how often their old nurse
had told the story!--had been led in to see him, his little feet stumbling
over each other in happy and unjealous haste. Through the years of
tutelage they had maintained an offensive and defensive alliance
against father, nurses and teachers; and their playmates, even including
Caelius, who was admitted into a happy triumvirate, knew that no
intimacy could exact concessions from their fraternal loyalty. Their
days were spent in the same tasks and the same play, and the nights,
isolating them from the rest of their little world, nurtured confidence
and candour. Memories began to gather and to torture him: smiling
memories of childish nights in connecting bedrooms, when, left by
their nurse to sleep, each boy would slip down into the middle of his
bed, just catching sight of the other through the open door in the dim
glow of the nightlamp, and defy Morpheus with lively tongue; poignant
memories of youthful nights, when elaborate apartments and separate
servants had not checked the emergence into wholesome speech of
vague ambitions, lusty hopes and shy emotions. It was in one of these
nights that Valerius had first hit upon his favourite nickname for his
brother. Pretty Aufilena had broken a promise and Catullus had
vehemently maintained that she was less honest than a loose woman